Elizabeth Warren’s Ambitious Fix for America’s Housing Crisis
Ten years ago, the subprime-mortgage crisis stripped millions of Americans of their homes. Many haven’t gotten those homes back and now face skyrocketing rents. Ask an economist, or any recent graduate trying to afford rent, and they’ll tell you: America is still in a housing crisis. On Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill tackling the issue head on, trying to lower the cost of homes in neighborhoods with greater economic opportunity.
The legislation, titled the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, is perhaps the most far-reaching assault on housing segregation since the 1968 Fair Housing Act. It’s ambitious, pouring half a trillion dollars over 10 years into affordable-housing programs, and funded by raising the estate tax to Bush-era levels. An outside study by Mark Zandi at Moody’s Analytics found that raising the estate tax would ensure the bill does not create a deficit.
As rumors swirl about , the bill—focused on race and class—is imbued with Warren’s trademark theory of capitalism: but only after the government has made sure the market isn’t rigged for one side. Equally
